


chase the sky (out into the ocean)

by seaqueen



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-09 17:14:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11673558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seaqueen/pseuds/seaqueen
Summary: It doesn't stop the hollow places in his chest. The ones that cry out in the dark hoping for more, for someone to share the burden and the joy both; and Alex is reminded then of his mother's words. He shares only a piece of life with his teammates and with girlfriends who never stay because while they share his heart they never understand his soul. They don't anchor him and remind him of who he is because they don't know it.





	chase the sky (out into the ocean)

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not super satisfied with this, but i've been messing with it enough and still not so i figured i might as well just post it because i wasn't going to be fully content ever and i wanted to just throw up my hands and put it out there.

There’s a saying, about north stars.

“Soulmates aren’t rare.” Alex’s mother used to tell him, brushing her fingers over the curve of his cheek when he was small. “You’ll meet a thousand soulmates, just as you’ll live a thousand lives. North Stars though, they are. By chance you’ll meet someone who encompass the way home. Someone who is home. And knowing them is like being found with never knowing you were lost.” She’d kiss his forehead and turn off the light and leave him to sleep.

He hadn’t understood at the time. He’d been young, and disinterested in anything that wasn’t hockey; let alone something as mystifying as someone to share a life with the way his mama did with his papa.

But it had been something that stuck with him all the same.

Alex grows up. He grows into himself and into the big, loud hockey he has always known was the place he was born to be. Being a teenager in the Superleague is hard enough, especially with the pressure that comes riding on the shoulders of it expected to the  _best,_ the future of Russian hockey; and the girls that drift through his orbit are never ones who were ever meant to last. 

It doesn't stop the hollow places in his chest. The ones that cry out in the dark hoping for more, for someone to share the burden and the joy both; and Alex is reminded then of his mother's words. He shares only a piece of life with his teammates and with girlfriends who never stay because while they share his heart they never understand his soul. They don't anchor him and remind him of who he is because they don't _know_ it - 

Alex has an affinity for fast cars and reckless play, for big hits and bigger goals; he doesn't replace his tooth and delights in shoving his gap toothed smile in everyone's faces. He makes no apologies for who he is and what he does because he refuses to give anyone else that satisfaction. He is over the top and he is ostentatious, he is anything but a good old Canadian boy and he loves fiercely and unapologetically. He puts his life on display for anyone and everyone to see and to know, and beneath it he shields the cracked pieces away buried carefully where no one thinks to look because they think they know the sum of Aleksandr Ovechkin.

They think because he puts it all on display and cries  _see, look, this is me this is who I am unapologetically and without shame_ that it is all there is. When you live with your life pinned to your chest and your heart bare for the world to see; that there is nothing else. 

No one looks for the tears and the yawning cracks beneath with every year that goes past and they don't win, for every gold medal that slips through his fingers; for every disappointment he is in the face of his country and his team both that he cannot be who they need him to. No one is the anchor he can lash mooring lines to as he drifts away from shore and watches helplessly. He can be enough he thinks desperately; for Russia, for the Capitals - he can be what they need him to be. He can take the broken splintering pieces and gather them up with bloody hands and hide them away to give them his all the way they deserve.

And he does. He always will. Aleksandr Ovechkin does nothing by half, and they pinned the C on his chest and told him they believed in him to lead the organization and that is a trust he will never betray.

But sometimes, in the wake of an empty home bereft of his parents or friends, when Alex is left alone to rattle about by himself with only the dogs for company - he lets himself mourn and think of those long ago words from his mother. Of soulmates and north stars and the way home. Of someone written as cleanly down to his bones as hockey always has been. Alex makes the mistake of mentioning this to Zhenya who only laughs at him and calls him oblivious and stupid both; and then calls his mother. "Oh my Sasha." Tatyana chuckles and raps her youngest sharply on his forehead. "You've already found your north star. You're just not looking carefully enough."

She knows something he doesn't, he thinks; punch drunk on confusion and swirling unease as the spectre of the playoffs looms again like Sisyphus's boulder. The brush of fingertips, feather light across his forearm, draws him out of thought and snaps him back. And when he lifts his gaze to meet those clear green eyes it's the sun emerging from the clouds, a bright ray of sunshine spreading across fresh rain slick frozen lakes.

At the end of all things, at his lowest moments and his cresting highs; it’s Nicky. It’s always been Nicky.

He orients himself to his center. He finds him when everything else in life is crumbling beneath his feet and the weight is too much - when Nicky reminds him that he is strong enough to bear it, to find his footing an his way. It's easier to focus on Nicky then. To put everything else aside and be drawn, magnet to lodestone, and quiet all the rest.

Nicky often holds the only bit of quiet in a world that spends its life screaming, as if he knows the secrets they don't no matter how they dig fingers into cracks and  _pry._

Nicky taps a glove to Alex's chest, over his heart as he holds Alex's gaze; and that.

That's the cresting swell of anticipation and the rising tide of pure affection that threatens to pull him under. It's as good as if not better than any spoken promise could ever be, here on their  _ice_ and in their rink, in their _home_. Alex wants to roar his feelings to the packed Verizon Center stands, flush with delight and love.

Alex thinks he’d been born half in love with Nicky before he ever met him, before he’d ever set foot on a stage at the NHL draft and called out his name.

Because when he sees the barest quirk of that smile, hidden and tucked away in the corners of his lips and just for Alex alone -

He isn’t lost anymore. And everything else fades away.

 

 

 

> _Soulmates aren’t rare, they aren’t, you’ll meet a thousand soulmates, just as you’ll live a thousand lives._
> 
> _North Stars though, they are. By chance you’ll meet someone who encompass the way home.  
>  Someone _ _who is home. And knowing them is like being found with never knowing you were lost._
> 
> _And you will love them. God, you will love them as they are because they are yours. They exist  
>  beneath your skin, in your veins, to your bones. They were written in some far off past life._
> 
> _There is no force that is more than they are._
> 
> _You are born half in love with them, and to have them, to be theirs, is like nothing else. Nothing would dare to be._

**Author's Note:**

> some of the lines here have been lifted directly from a poem by lostcap, and all credit for them goes directly to them! the original post about soulmates and north stars can be found [here](http://lostcap.tumblr.com/post/132780947618/soulmates-arent-rare-they-arent-youll-meet-a). it's a gorgeous poem!
> 
> deeply inspired by [this tumblr post](http://tjoshov.tumblr.com/post/162368121203/theres-this-constant-im-seeing-in-all-of-these). because it makes me so deeply happy to see every time. 
> 
> title comes from "something wild" by lindsey stirling ft andrew mcmahon; which is one of my all time favorite nicky/ovi inspo songs so i highly highly suggest listening to it!


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